The Reforms of Solon

In desperation, the Athenians in 594 B.C. gave Solon special authority to revise their laws1 to deal with the economic crisis and its dire social consequences that had brought their society to the brink of internecine war. As he explains in his autobiographical poetry, Solon tried to steer a middle course2 between the demands of the rich to preserve their financial advantages and the call of the poor for a redistribution of land to themselves from the holdings of the large landowners. His famous “shaking off of obligations”3 somehow freed those farms whose ownership had become formally encumbered without, however, actually redistributing any land. He also forbade the selling of Athenians into slavery for debt and secured the liberation of citizens who had become slaves4 in this way, commemorating his success in the verses he wrote about his reforms: “To Athens, their home established by the gods, I brought back many who had been sold into slavery, some justly, some not ...”5

Attempting to balance political power between rich and poor, , Solon ranked male citizens into four classes according to their income6: “five-hundred-measure men” (pentakosiomedimnoi , those with an annual income equivalent to that much agricultural produce), “horsemen” (hippeis , income of three hundred measures), “yoked men” (zeugitai , two hundred measures), and “laborers” (thetes, less than two hundred measures). The higher a man's class, the higher the governmental office for which he was eligible, with the laborer class barred from all posts. Solon did reaffirm the right of this class to participate in the assembly (ekklesia ), however. Solon probably created a council (boule) of four hundred7 men to prepare an agenda for the discussions in the assembly, although some scholars place this innovation later than Solon's time. Aristocrats could not dominate the council's deliberations because its members were chosen by lot, probably only from the top three income classes. Solon may also have initiated a schedule of regular meetings for the assembly. These reforms gave added impetus to the assembly's legislative role and thus indirectly laid a foundation for the political influence that the “laborer” (thete ) class would gradually acquire over the next century and a half.

Despite the restriction on office holding by the lowest income class, Solon's classification scheme supported further development of conditions leading to democracy because it allowed for upward social mobility: if a man managed to increase his income, he could move up the scale of eligibility for office. The absence of direct taxes on income made it easier for entrepreneurial citizens to better their lot. From Solon's reforms, Athenian male citizens gained a political and social system far more open to individual initiative and change than that of Sparta.

Equally important to restoring stability in a time of acute crisis was Solon's ruling that any male citizen could bring charges on a wide variety of offenses against wrongdoers on behalf of any victim of a crime.1 Furthermore, he provided for the right of appeal2 to the assembly by persons who believed a magistrate had rendered unjust judgments against them. With these two measures, Solon made the administration of justice the concern of ordinary citizens and not just of still predominately aristocratic magistrates. He balanced these judicial reforms favoring the people, however, by granting broader powers to the “Council which meets on the Hill of the god of war Ares,” the Areopagus (meaning “Ares' hill”). Archons became members of the Areopagus3 after their year in office. This body of ex-archons could, if the members chose, exercise great power because at this period it judged the most serious judicial cases, in particular accusations against archons themselves. Solon probably also expected the Areopagus to use its power to protect his reforms

PERSONAL ACCOUNTS FROM DIFFERENT GREEKS IN RESPONSE TO SOLON’S REFORMS

15.

Thus he represents the multitude and men of low degree as speaking of him. However, though he rejected the tyranny, he did not administer affairs in the mildest possible manner, nor in the enactment of his laws did he show a feeble spirit, nor make concessions to the powerful, nor consult the pleasure of his electors. Nay, where a condition was as good as it could well be, he applied no remedy, and introduced no innovation, fearing lest, after utterly confusing and confounding the city, he should be too weak to establish it again and recompose it for the best. [2] But those things wherein he hoped to find them open to persuasion or submissive to compulsion, these he did,

Combining both force and justice together,

1 as he says himself. Therefore when he was afterwards asked if he had enacted the best laws for the Athenians, he replied, ‘The best they would receive.’

Now later writers observe that the ancient Athenians used to cover up the ugliness of things with auspicious and kindly terms, giving them polite and endearing names. [3] Thus they called harlots ‘companions,’ taxes ‘contributions,’ the garrison of a city its ‘guard,’ and the prison a ‘chamber.’ But Solon was the first, it would seem, to use this device, when he called his cancelling of debts a ‘disburdenment.’ For the first of his public measures was an enactment that existing debts should be remitted, and that in future no one should lend money on the person of a borrower. [4] Some writers, however, and Androtion is one of them, affirm that the poor were relieved not by a cancelling of debts, but by a reduction of the interest upon them, and showed their satisfaction by giving the name of ‘disburdenment’ to this act of humanity, and to the augmentation of measures and the purchasing power of money which accompanied it.2 For he made the mina to consist of a hundred drachmas, which before has contained only seventy-three, so that by paying the same amount of money, but money of a lesser value, those who had debts to discharge were greatly benefited, and those who accepted such payments were no losers. [5] But most writers agree that the ‘disburdenment’ was a removal of all debt, and with such the poems of Solon are more in accord For in these he proudly boasts that from the mortgaged lands

He took away the record-stones that everywhere were planted
Before, Earth was in bondage, now she is free

3 And of the citizens whose persons had been seized for debt, some he brought back from foreign lands,

uttering no longer Attic speech,
So long and far their wretched wanderings
And some who here at home in shameful servitude
Were held

4 he says he set free [6]

This undertaking is said to have involved him in the most vexatious experience of his life. For when he had set out to abolish debts, and was trying to find fitting arguments and a suitable occasion for the step, he told some of his most trusted and intimate friends, namely, Conon, Cleinias, and Hipponicus, that he was not going to meddle with the land, but had determined to cancel debts. They immediately took advantage of this confidence and anticipated Solon's decree by borrowing large sums from the wealthy and buying up great estates. [7] Then when the decree was published, they enjoyed the use of their properties, but refused to pay the moneys due their creditors. This brought Solon into great condemnation and odium, as if he had not been imposed upon with the rest, but were a party to the imposition.5 However, this charge was at once dissipated by his well-known sacrifice of five talents. For it was found that he had lent so much, and he was the first to remit this debt in accordance with his law. Some say that the sum was fifteen talents, and among them is Polyzelus the Rhodian. But his friends were ever after called ‘chreocopidae,’ or debt- cutters.

Solon having become master of affairs made the people free both at the time and for the future by prohibiting loans secured on the person, and he laid down laws, and enacted cancellations of debts both private and public, the measures1 that are known as 'the Shaking-off of Burdens,' meaning that the people shook off their load. In these matters some people try to misrepresent him;

After he had established the council of the Areiopagus, consisting of those who had been archons year by year (and he himself was a member of this body since he had been archon), he observed that the common people were uneasy and bold in consequence of their release from debt, and therefore established another council besides, consisting of four hundred men, one hundred chosen from each of the four tribes.1 These were to deliberate on public matters before the people did, and were not to allow any matter to come before the popular assembly without such previous deliberation.